


Taking Flight, Making Me Feel (like i just wanna know you better now)

by tambuli



Series: Taylor Swift AU [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Female Friendship, Heartbreak, Poetry, Rejected Love Confession, Unrequited Love, but like jester to fjord not caleb/jester, i love the girls of the m9 so much, if you open this prepare to read a lot of poetry, seriously there is a READING LIST, this is an excuse for me to nerd about poetry and literature
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25490689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tambuli/pseuds/tambuli
Summary: Dr. Kryn, Wildemount High's resident poetry teacher, assigns homework: Find a poem that fits your partner.Jester Lavorre and Caleb Widogast are assigned partners.Or: Jester and Caleb sit in a room and get to know each other, and then they go home and find a poem about the other. In the process, they understand each other better.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Series: Taylor Swift AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1489106
Comments: 44
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> also known as: julia takes the opportunity to talk about the great love of her life, poetry
> 
> alternately: we asked taylor swift for a cornelia street/cruel summer music video. she dropped an album instead.
> 
> in a similar vein, instead of writing pining au fix-it, julia dropped a poetry au instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 9/27/2020: I ctrl-H'd all mentions of Nott to Veth; if anything seems to have been replaced wrong, please tell me!

Dr. Kryn glides to the front of the room, eyes on the poetry book she’s reading from, her voice washing over her students like water. Soft first, gentle on the first few verses, then a rushing current as the tension in the poem begins to build—

 _Pretty,_ Jester thinks, involuntarily, watching the shape of her mouth, then clamps down on the thought as fast as she can. Dr. Kryn is beautiful, elegant, glamorous, all white hair and dark skin, sleek silver lines and glittering— _and_ she has a doctorate _,_ is a multi-awarded poet, is being whispered about as a Pulitzer Prize candidate.

And honestly, she’s the best teacher Wildemount High has. Jester has _no idea_ how Dr. Kryn ended up teaching here.

Dr. Kryn is so much _more_ than just **_pretty_**.

 _“And you tried to change didn’t you?”_ Dr. Kryn reads. Jester stiffens. _“Closed your mouth more / tried to be softer / prettier / less volatile, less awake / but even when sleeping you could feel / him traveling away from you in his dreams.”_

Dr. Kryn pauses to take a breath, and sweeps her violet gaze over all of them. Is Jester imagining it, or did her eyes linger on Jester?

 _“So what did you want to do, love / split his head open?”_ she asks them. _“You can’t make homes out of human beings / someone should already have told you that. And if he wants to leave / then let him leave.”_

Somewhere behind Jester, someone sucks in a breath. Dr. Kryn closes the book with a snap—

 _“You are terrifying,”_ she says. _“And strange and beautiful / something not everyone knows how to love.”_

The moment stretches, stretches— she holds the beat, holds the moment where a classroom full of senior creative writing students are rapt and breathless before her—and then Dr. Kryn claps, and the moment shatters.

“That was [Warsan Shire’s _For women who are difficult to love_](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/24885961989/for-women-who-are-difficult-to-love) _._ ”

Jester averts her gaze.

After a beat, Dr. Kryn says, “Very well, class.” People begin scrambling to collect their things. “That will be all for today. For your weekend homework—” everyone sags, only to snap back to attentiveness as Dr. Kryn’s eyes sharpen—“I want you to find a poem that fits your assigned partner. No, no restrictions,” she says, interrupting Essek Theylss’s inevitable question with a wave of her hand. “If you feel that, gods forbid, your partner _whiffles through the tulgey wood, and burbles as they come_ , then far it be for me to stop you.” A choked laugh escapes Caleb Widogast.

Caleb Widogast. Jester turns to him, trying to put an impish twinkle in her eye. Caleb caught her breaking down in the drama room last week, but thankfully has said nothing at all—but they were assigned creative writing partners during the beginning of the semester, and now she has to think up a poem for him, and he has to think up a poem for her.

God only knows what he’ll think of. Something, something _stupid_ and _juvenile_ maybe, something like [**_The Walrus and the Carpenter_** ,](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/162284445495/the-walrus-and-the-carpenter) except no, that one’s a really good poem, and funny—maybe something _horrible_ and painful like the poem Dr. Kryn read them last week, that one by Richard Siken—

[ _“Love, for you, is larger than the usual romantic love,”_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48158/litany-in-which-certain-things-are-crossed-out) Dr. Kryn had read last week, and every word had stabbed. “ _It’s like a religion. It’s terrifying. No one will ever want to sleep with you.”_

Caleb catches her glance, then, and a…a _look_ passes across his face. Not a smile, not a grimace, but a _look_ , something Jester can’t read. And Jester likes to think she’s gotten really good at reading Caleb Widogast, so what was that _look_ about—

Then he smiles at her, guarded and shy but _real_ , and Jester feels a smile break across her face in reply.

Then the bell rings, and everyone is scrambling to collect their things and rushing to get home.

Beauregard falls into step beside her, and she knocks her shoulder into Jester’s. Jester fake-staggers.

“What poem are you choosing for my ickle brotherkins?” she asks.

“Oh, I don’t know…” Jester says, then: “What poem are you choosing for Yasha?”

Beau doesn’t blush visibly, because of how dark she is, but Jester has had literal _years_ of experience with Beauregard, so she notices it.

 _“How do I love thee, let me count the ways?”_ she asks, grinning.

“Hey, fuck you!”

Jester cackles.

“[ ** _she being brand new_**](https://mseffie.com/assignments/poem-a-day/cummings.html) _,_ ” Veth contributes, catching up to them.

“Hey!” Beau cries out, offended now. “I wouldn’t—she wouldn’t—e.e. cummings is a huge pervert and that poem is _super_ pornographic—”

“That’s why his name was Cummings,” Jester points out, waggling her eyebrows.

“That’s not how it works— _Jester_!”

Jester cackles again. Beau can pretend she doesn’t care, but she’s actually the _biggest_ literature nerd Jester knows. Like, Caleb is a fucking _genius_ at STEM subjects and a really, _reaaaalllyyyyy_ good drama and speech student, but Beau’s essays and poems are like, _amazing._ And easy to understand! And Beau actually understands all the theory! And there was this one time where she went around speaking in iambic pentameter for a _whole day_ , just because she could.

Jester thought she’d drop it when Beau went to lacrosse practice, but apparently _fuck_ and _fucker_ work just fine in iambic pentameter.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t,” Beau mutters. “Yasha doesn’t deserve— ** _she being brand new_**.” She scoffs. “Who’s your partner again, Veth?”

Veth makes a face. “Caduceus Clay. What poem fits him? Is there a poem for like, being—super wise and chill about death and grew up in a literal _graveyard_?”

Beau looks thoughtful, but then they reach the parking lot and they’re waving each other goodbye, and then Jester is getting into her car and driving home, thoughts of poetry still bouncing around in her mind.

***

It’s Sunday afternoon, which means Jester has about twenty-four hours to come up with a poem for Caleb Widogast otherwise she’s screwed.

 _Nobody_ wants to be the person under Dr. Kryn’s wilting stare. _No one_ wants to be the one who disappoints Dr. Kryn. It’s perfectly fine for someone in her class to be bad at first—that’s what school is _for,_ Dr. Kryn had said, _learning_ —but _not trying_ was a cardinal sin in her classroom.

And the blinking cursor and empty search bar show that Jester hasn’t _tried hard enough_ to find a poem for Caleb.

Frustrated, she throws herself dramatically on her bed and reaches for her phone. Opens up Messenger and before she can think better of it, sends:

_Hey_

_Caleb_

_Dr. kryn’s homework is so harddddd wtffffff_

The three dots appear and reappear, and then Caleb replies, _Try Invictus. It applies to everyone._

 ** _Invictus_**? Jester googles it quickly—so that’s where _I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul_ came from!

\--But it doesn’t _fit_ Caleb, not the way Dr. Kryn wants the poem to.

This poem is—a rallying cry, a fight, a punch in the gut. It might work for Beau, who’s always up for a fight, would stomp fate into the ground to protect her friends, would spit blood and teeth before she ever gave up.

But not _Caleb._ Not Caleb.

 _Maybe for beau,_ she texts back.

He sends back a thumbs up.

 _What did u get for me?????_ she asks.

 _Secret_ , he sends back. And then, _You’ll find out tomorrow._

_Will I like it???????_

A long pause, no three dots appearing and disappearing. And then, _I hope so._

Jester sighs. This hasn’t really helped her out any—Caleb is so. Mysterious! And clever! And his fingers are burned and he barely has, like, fingerprints. She’s _never asked_ because she’s seen how— _distant_ he gets, how he goes away around everyone but Beau and Veth, which, by the way, she needs to find out _the story_ behind that.

Beau is his sister, his like, foster sister, but who is Veth to him?

Like, they’re best friends. _Obviously._ CalebandVeth. But like—

_Hey r u in secretly in love w Veth?????_

_WHAT THE FUCK_

_LAVORRE_

_WHAT ????????_

Oh, she’s made Caleb Perfect-Grammar-and-Punctuation use all caps! Jester cackles.

_So u aren’t?????_

Caleb sends back: _She is in love with Yeza._

 _That doesn’t mean u can’t be in love with herrrrrr_ , Jester points out. _She is super lovable_

 _That’s fair,_ Caleb acquiesces. _Yeza is an extremely lucky person. But no, it is not Veth I love._

And then, a moment after: _You should be doing your homework._

 _I am!_ she defends. _I don’t know u rly well, caleb, so i’m researching u! by texting!!_

Jester thinks for a second of asking the obvious follow-up: _so who DO you love ???_ But she imagines the way his blue eyes would shutter, like windows—“eyes are the windows to the soul” is so cliché, the kind of thing that would make Dr. Kryn’s eyebrows raise a miniscule amount if it made way into their poems—and decides not to.

Instead, Jester imagines Caleb repressing his laughter, his mouth pressing into a thin line the way he does when she cracks a joke in drama class, or when she does something especially ridiculous and funny in-character. A smile breaks across her own face, unbidden.

 _Tell me abt urself,_ she commands.

The three dots appear, and reappear, and Caleb says, _I am not very interesting._

 _Yes u r!!!!!_ Jester replies. _Ur like, super cool and a genius or something!!! And a super good actor!!!! Plus like, Veth and beau wouldn’t love u so much if u were boringggg_

She darts a glance out the window. The sun isn’t down yet—it’s begun its descent, but won’t be fully down for a few hours yet.

 _Wanna come over????_ she asks, before she can think better of it.

The next pause is the longest yet, and Jester throws her phone down, unwilling to watch the three dots appearing and disappearing, unwilling to watch Caleb Widogast _reject her_ , even though realistically she knows it wouldn’t be, like, a _rejection-_ rejection. It would just be, oh, she doesn’t even know, it wouldn’t be _personal_ is the point—

 _Is your house near a bus stop?_ Caleb asks. _I can’t drive, and I don’t want to ask Dairon to drive me, and then pick me up if we run late._

Jester’s “ ** _YES!!!!_** ” is so loud it rattles her windows.

***

Caleb in her space is different from Fjord in her space. It makes Jester sick to the stomach to compare, but she does.

When Fjord came over, Jester would tidy up her desk, try to scrub off the paint that sank into the wood when she foolishly forgot to put newsprint over it when she was fingerpainting—

Jester-before-Fjord-came-over would have scoured her fingernails clean to remove all traces of her fingerpainting. Jester-before-Caleb-came-over just put on a bra and cleared a space on her floor.

“Sorry about the mess,” she says. Caleb stands at the threshold of her room, hunched over in his giant brown coat, skinny wristbones poking out. He takes in her room with…careful eyes, and Jester doesn’t even feel a little bit scared.

She lets him take in the pink-covered bed, the multitude of stuffed toys thrown across it; she lets him take in the walls painted with her childhood doodles; she lets him see the large canvas which is half-sketch and half-paint. The curtain closing her window off from the world is streaked with paint where she hadn’t bothered to wash her hands and instead wiped it off on the closest cloth.

He quirks a ghost of a half-smile. “I don’t think you’re sorry at all.”

She giggles.

“Come in, come in, but we’ll leave the door open, Mama prefers if I do that,” she says. “I don’t have a rug because it gets in the way of painting, BUT!” She tugs out two beanbags. “Tadaaaa.”

His ghost of a half-smile becomes a ghost of a whole smile. “Danke.”

“Do you want cookies? I have cookies. Snickerdoodles.”

“Ah—” He’s starting to look a little overwhelmed. She wants to cackle in glee. There’s _nothing in the world_ she loves as much as messing with people—but also, her traitorous heart clenches. _Almost_ nothing in the world as much as messing with people. “If it would not trouble you?”

“No trouble at aaaall,” she sings hospitably. “Get settled, go on, it’s fine! I’ll just go down to the kitchen reaaaal fast Cayleb, for the snacks!”

She darts right down, and discovers to her delight that Mama bought a half-dozen cupcakes alongside the snickerdoodles. She brings up the electric kettle and two mugs too, as well as a selection of teabags and coffee and hot chocolate for her. No need for them to move to the kitchen if they have _aaall_ the amenities already.

(She ignores the lemonade in the fridge, still put aside for if/when Fjord comes over. She’s just…going to ignore that.)

When she gets back, Caleb has shed the coat, and left it carefully folded in a beanbag. He’s not sitting in it, though. He’s looking at the canvas, her half-finished painting of a mass of flowers that she’s making for Yasha.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, once he discerns she’s returned.

“Isn’t it?” she says, cheerfully. “What’s beautiful about it?”

She can hear the quarter-laugh in Caleb’s voice as he answers, “Well, I would say everything, but.” He points at one particular sketched-in flower, still awaiting paint. “This is a butterfly pea plant. It comes in vibrant blues, with a center that’s yellow or white.”

“It does,” she says, grin widening.

“But,” he says, “it also looks like a vulva.”

Jester bursts out laughing.

“A very clever way of referencing Yasha’s orientation,” he says. “And you’ve tucked it in amongst a myriad of other flowers, so one would have to be looking quite hard to find it once it’s all painted in.”

“How did you know it’s for Yasha?” she asks.

He turns around, and that’s no half-smile now, he’s full on smiling. It’s beautiful. It’s striking. It makes her half-dizzy to see it, the way his whole face lights up when his blue eyes crinkle and his cheeks go plump with mirth.

“It’s her birthday soon,” he says, “and also, there’s a _for Yasha with love from Jester_ written on the back of the canvas. And you don’t have any other friends who love flowers as much, anyway.”

“What else do you like about it?”

Caleb obediently turns back. “Well, as I said, I like the butterfly pea, also known as the clitoria ternatea.” Jester stifles a snort. “I knew you would like that. Hmm. I like these ferns. The delicate feathering must have taken forever, or a very fine brush, or both.”

“Both!”

“And I like that there’s,” he hums. “I may be mistaken, Lavorre, but I believe you are planning an abstract sort of painting, in which the surface _appears_ to be just flowers, but if you look a little closer you realize it’s actually a stylized face. How clever.”

Jester giggles. The sound is a little manic. Oh god. He knows her. He sees her. Why does he see her, how does he see her, and why is this making her half-sick and half-happy?

“You’re so smart, Cayleb!” she says instead. And then, to distract: “Mama bought cupcakes! Here, have some! She got _black moss cupcakes,_ which sounds suuuper gross because, moss, right? But then it has a kind of charcoal-y flavor and earthy and stuff, and it’s surprisingly good AND it has cream filling too—”

She’s holding out the cupcake box, and Caleb looks at the choices, and saids, “Ja, thank you, but I like blueberry.”

“ _Blueberry_?” she pouts. “But you can get blueberry at any old cupcake place, this is from the bakery down Uthodurn Street, it’s super great!”

“Then I’m certain the blueberry cupcakes from the bakery down Uthodurn Street will be sublime,” Caleb says. “Besides, you like the black moss very much, I would not want to deprive you of something you are raving about.”

Jester’s smile freezes. _Why is he like this. WHY IS HE LIKE THIS._

“Okaaay suit yourself. So, um, homework? And also what kind of drink would you like, coffee or chocolate or tea?”

“Homework,” Caleb agrees, and Jester busies herself with setting up the electric kettle and the mugs. “I would like a coffee mix with chocolate, please.”

Jester looks up. “Huh?”

“Half chocolate mix, half coffee,” he repeats, smiling. “It is something I have discovered recently. Bitter at first with a sweet aftertaste.”

“Ooooh that sounds nice. I want to try it too!”

Caleb settles down very properly on the beanbag, sitting ramrod straight. Perfect posture, as if he’s having dinner at a suuuper posh restaurant. She opens her mouth to tell him to relax, then—

Then she remembers when she first met him, in drama class. The bandages around his arms. The way his fingers are burned.

She’ll let this one go.

She makes the coffee-chocolate, and settles down on the beanbag beside him. Caleb murmurs a thank you as she passes him the drink.

“Homework!” she says. “Okay. Um.”

“How do you want to do this?” Caleb asks, sipping his drink. “I was under the impression I am here so you can, ah. Get to know me better, so you can pick a good poem for me.”

“Ja, exactly,” she says, imitating his German accent. “Okay, first things first—what’s the poem you picked for me?”

He hides his smile behind his mug. “Lavorre, I have already told you. You will find out tomorrow.”

She pouts. “Worth a try.” She peers up at him from behind lashes. “Pleaaase?”

“No.”

“Well, um. Okay. How about—where do you want to go to college?”

“Oh, not you too,” he mock-groans. “Where are _you_ going to college?”

“Uh-uh, I asked first.”

“Hmm. Truth be told, I am not certain. Wherever will have me, I suppose. Though I am hoping for somewhere with a solid STEM program.” Jester opens her mouth to ask, and he says, as if anticipating, “I like the sciences very much. And medical engineering.”

“It’s a wonder you’re in advanced literature,” Jester says, half-teasingly, “left-brain.”

“Even eggheads can appreciate a turn of phrase,” he says. “Plus, Leylas is one of the foremost scientists of our time.”

“She’s a WHAT?????”

Caleb does look genuinely surprised then. “Leylas is a very accomplished physicist,” he says, slowly. “Her theories on the nature of the universe—god that sounds so pretentious—”

“WHAT IS SHE DOING TEACHING POETRY, THEN?”

“Physicists see the beauty of the universe in a different but equally valid lens,” he answers, as if quoting her. “Lavorre—what did you think the _Dr._ was from?”

“A doctorate in POETRY,” Jester half-shrieks.

“No, she just has a masters in that.”

Jester wants to smack him over the head, gently, the way she does Veth and Beau. She settles for nudging his beanbag with her foot.

“I can’t believe I didn’t know that! And how come you get to call her _Leylas_?”

“Truth be told, I am not certain either. When Essek and I started working with her, she just…told us to call her Leylas, outside of class.”

“ _Essek_ huh,” she says, wriggling her eyebrows. “Anything _going on_ with that _tall dark mysterious boy—_ ”

“I will give you that he is tall,” Caleb says, half-laughing, “but ah, no, nothing is going on between Essek and I.”

Jester waggles her eyebrows more. Caleb flushes.

“Is _heeee_ the one you love then, if not Veth?”

“I promise you, it is not Essek Theylss who I—um. I do not like the cut of his jib.”

“THE CUT OF HIS JIB.” Jester is cackling. “What on earth is that metaphor? God, Caleb. You’re so—”

Funny, quirky, wondrous, delightful—

“Silly,” she decides, a beat later.

“Perhaps that’s something you can use for our homework,” Caleb suggests, and bites into his blueberry cupcake. His eyes close in delight.

“Okay Google, open notes app. Write Caleb…Widogast…is silly…and likes…blueberry cupcakes…like a boring person…”

Jester is watching Caleb as she does this, and thus she catches the briefest flash of—something. Something she can’t decipher in his eyes. Something like laughter, but also something darker. Something worse.

“Hey Cayleb?”

“Ja?”

“Do you think Dr. Kryn chooses poems that will, you know. Affect us as students?”

“I imagine so. Poems are made to make us feel.”

“No, I get that, I mean.” She makes a frustrated noise. “Do you think she like, observes her students and picks out poems to like, specifically poke at their emotions, or…?”

“It would not surprise me,” he says. “Leylas likes a little bit of chaos.”

“Oh _does she_ ,” she says, delighted.

“Mm.” Then he says, “So, Lavorre. You have asked quite a few questions of me. Now it is my turn, I believe. What are _you_ going to college for?”

“Um—” She’s too startled to lie or misdirect. “Business administration.”

Caleb sits up straighter.

“I am!” Jester says, suddenly defensive, and trying badly to hide it. “I—I want to open a café. And make a lot of _dough._ ” She winks. Was that an effective enough distraction?

Apparently not, because Caleb Widogast says, “I look forward to it,” with _so much sincerity._

“I mean, I could still fail,” she babbles, “I mean, there’s a lot of competition, and you know, _Starbucks_ , and…well.” She gives in. “It’s going to be a café-and-art place, where you can paint stuff or draw stuff while eating delicious stuff, which, you know, is _basically_ my life passion, and also I guess there could be an open mic sometimes, so musicians can jam out sometimes, with jam donuts!”

Caleb is hiding his laugh into his mug again. She wants to tell him, _no, let me see, I want to see you laugh, please,_ but why would she do that? Why does she care?

She doesn’t, that’s all.

“Hmm. What else. How about…what music do you like?”

“Guessssss.”

“Taylor Swift,” he says.

“That is _not_ fair, everyone likes Taylor Swift, that was a gimme,” she protests. And then, her traitorous mind: _not everyone. Not Avantika._

But no, she will NOT think of Avantika right now, not think of how she pressed Fjord right up against the lockers and, and _ate his face,_ basically, and how she had stood there frozen like Taylor Swift in a music video, feeling her heart drop to her feet and shatter on the tile floor of Wildemount High—

“I do like some of her work,” Caleb admits freely. “She is a very good lyricist.”

“ISN’T SHE?!” Jester jumps on the conversational gambit, “she is so good, let me put on some of her music while I interrogate you for homework—”

The corners of Caleb’s mouth quirk up, and that’s a victory in and of itself, you know.

Taylor Swift on shuffle pipes softly through her room as she resettles on her bean bag, looking Caleb in the eyes as she munches a black moss cupcake. “So. More homework.”

“Yes, more homework.”

“Hmm…Cayleb, can I ask you something?”

“You already have asked me quite a few questions, but go on, you may ask another.”

“Why are you studying _so_ hard?”

And because she’s watching so closely now, she can see how his eyes shutter, she can see the way his previously gentle expression turns blank and frozen. “I, uh. Can it not be for the money, Lavorre? Physicists, engineers, make a lot of money.”

“That’s truuuue,” Jester agrees, still looking at him, “but that’s not the reason.”

Caleb Widogast, in her room, sitting in her beanbag with his posture ramrod straight, a blue long-sleeved t-shirt that’s not his (it says _Cobalt Soul Lacrosse_ ) too large on his skinny shoulders—

Caleb Widogast fidgeting with his sleeves, Caleb Widogast rubbing his arms, Caleb Widogast with the odd burned-off fingerprints, Caleb Widogast with the tragedy behind his eyes that Jester can see so clearly, yet he can smile at her and joke with her and eat cupcakes with her—

Caleb Widogast, who caught her crying in the drama room and told her about Astrid, but she knows, she just knows, there’s something _else_ lurking behind his eyes, someone _more_ than just a girl he used to love—

(there are always girls they used to love, or maybe still love, Jester knows that from _Fjord_ )

“Have you ever done…something really bad?” he asks her, finally, and his gaze moves from her eyes to the left of her face, to her ear maybe.

“I shoplifted for Fjord,” she admits. He chokes out a laugh.

“Not that kind of bad.”

“I turned around all the cans in a grocery aisle once so no one could figure out what they were buying.”

“Not that either.”

She moves forward, just the slightest bit, and lays her hand on his.

“You don’t have to tell me, Cayleb,” she says, “it’s not—this is not homework, I just…”

In the background, Taylor Swift croons softly, _I just wanna know you better, know you better, know you better, know you better now._

He looks away, but covers her paint-stained hand with his own. She notes that the hand is rough and scarred. “I—I have to atone,” he says, finally, unable to lie to her. “I have to make up for…something.”

“And physics will help with that?” she asks, voice low.

“Medical physics,” he says, “and materials science engineering.” She raises her eyebrows, a nonverbal _go on._ “…medical solutions for burns, maybe skin grafts. And also fireproofing buildings.” And then, “and Lavorre, please…”

 _That’s enough, don’t ask me more,_ she hears, and she says softly, “Okay. Okay.” And then, because she can’t resist, “You know you don’t have to _atone_ for anything, right? If you want to help other people, that’s great, that’s a good motivation, but, but you don’t have to _atone_ for stuff, all right?”

“But I do,” he says, and drops his gaze. “I do, I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

He jerks, as if he wants to pull away, but she twines his fingers into hers and he looks at her startled, with some sort of fragile awe.

“I am—not a good person,” he chokes out, “I am a broken thing—”

“You _are_ ,” Jester says, “you’ve been _so nice_ , and Veth and Beau love you so much, they wouldn’t love a bad person, and also you’re not a _thing._ You’re a whole person.”

“A whole person,” he repeats, “a whole _person._ ” He begins to laugh, something broken and half-sobbing and not a true mirthful laugh. “Lavorre, I—Jester— _you_ are so good. You—”

“You’re not broken,” Jester says, “and if I’m a good person, then _so are you._ Good people recognize other good people. Or are you saying you’re _soooo_ good at lying that you can lie to ME, Jester Lavorre?”

Caleb closes his eyes. “I wouldn’t ever want to lie to you, that’s for certain.”

***

A few hours later, as the front door closes behind Caleb, Jester lies in bed, staring at her star-strewn ceiling.

Glow-in-the-dark stars sputter weakly above her as she lifts her phone and types in _Anthem by Leonard Cohen._

***

“JESTER!” Beau barrels right into her Monday morning, her brown face twisted in panic. She’s waving a paper around. “JESTER, WE HAVE TO READ OUR POEMS OUT LOUD.”

“We have to what?!” Jester shrieks.

“WE HAVE TO READ OUR POEMS OUT LOUD,” Beau repeats, “AND I CHOSE—” She makes an unintelligible noise. “I thought we’d print them out and hand them to our partners! Or go sit together and read them to each other! Not in front of the class! I didn’t prepare for this!”

Veth sidles up to them and says dryly, “As you can see, Beauregard is in a bit of a gay panic.”

“A BIT OF A—”

“What did you choose for Yasha, anyway?” Veth asks, yanking the printout from Beau’s hand. She yelps in protest, but Veth’s already scanning it.

“ _Wow_ ,” Veth says, “that’s gay, Beauregard Lionett.”

“I—” Beau sputters. She looks at Jester pleadingly. “Jes, help me out here. I’m the emotional equivalent of a keysmash.”

Then the bell rings, and they have to file into Dr. Kryn’s classroom.

She’s standing at the board, her turquoise eyes dancing as she takes in the chaos. _That woman,_ Jester thinks, _she planned for this! She planned this!!_

Which, obviously, she did, it’s in her lesson plan and all, but!

 _Leylas likes a little chaos,_ Caleb Widogast’s voice says in her head, and by instinct she jerks her head to look at him.

He’s already looking at her.

“Did you know we had to read it aloud?” she asks, sliding into the chair next to him.

“Mm. I may have led Beauregard to that poem on purpose,” he says, a ghost of a thought of a smile touching his mouth.

“ _You_ like chaos too!”

“Maybe so.”

The class settles, and Dr. Kryn says, “Well, first things first—homework.” A class-wide groan, and she raises a pale eyebrow. Everyone shuts up. She raises her attendance sheet, and then a handful of multi-sided dice. “I am going to roll for who gets to go first, and then after they’ve gone, their partner will go. For this exercise, we will read out the poem they chose, and _we will not explain why_. This will be a practice in, hmm. Let’s call it analysis. Yes.” Mischief is dancing in those eyes, Jester is CERTAIN. A mischief maker can always detect another mischief maker.

She rolls the dice, and she gets Caduceus Clay up first, and then Veth. Veth bounds up after Caduceus, and with uncharacteristic seriousness, reads out her pick for Caduceus.

“[This is _Ozymandias,_ by Percy Bysshe Shelley](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/183053044079/ozymandias),” she starts.

_“I met a traveller from an antique land  
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone  
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,  
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,  
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,  
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read  
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,  
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:  
And on the pedestal these words appear:  
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'_

Caduceus’s brow is furrowed, as if he’s trying to understand. Jester realizes this is a sonnet, and sonnets always have a _turn,_ a _volta_ , in the final few lines—the sonnet’s meaning turns on its head, it does something weird. Takes a sharp left turn from where you expected it to go.

And indeed, that happens, when Veth takes a deep breath and recites the rest:

_  
“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay  
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare  
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”_

Caduceus’s eyes brighten, and he smiles widely at Veth.

Caduceus is _so weird._

And then it’s Beau’s turn, and she’s flushing bright.

“Dr. Kryn, do I _have_ to do this,” she groans, and Dr. Kryn says, “Yes, you do. Go on, then.”

Beau slouches up to the front of the class, holding her printout. It’s creased from her nervous fingertips.

“All right, all right, fine, this is uh. This is [_Wild Geese_ by Mary Oliver](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/183676664360/wild-geese).”

From the back of the class, there’s a sharp inhale.

Beauregard clears her throat, and reads:

_“You do not have to be good.  
You do not have to walk on your knees  
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.  
You only have to let the soft animal of your body  
love what it loves.”_

Beau’s voice cracks, and she’s almost pleading, as she reads:

_  
**Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.**  
Meanwhile the world goes on.  
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain  
are moving across the landscapes,  
over the prairies and the deep trees,  
the mountains and the rivers.  
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,  
are heading home again.  
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,  
the world offers itself to your imagination,  
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --  
over and over announcing your place  
in the family of things.”_

And then, without even waiting for Dr. Kryn to dismiss her, Beauregard scrambles back to her seat.

Jester steals a glance at Yasha, and their tall friend seems to be seconds from tears. She’s mouthing something, some three-syllable word, with the final syllable touching the back of her teeth and opening her mouth, but Jester can’t lip-read, she can’t figure it out. But tears are shining in Yasha’s eyes. Jester jerks her head back to the front.

Dr. Kryn tosses her dice. “Nine. Okay, Mr. Widogast, it’s your turn.”

Caleb inhales. Jester says teasingly, “This better be good, Cayyyleb!”

“I hope it will be,” he murmurs back. He heads to the front, and says, “This is…[ _perfectly human_ by Miles Walser](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/175345073824/perfectly-human).”

Dr. Kryn’s eyebrows go up, up, up, but all Jester feels is confused.

Caleb clears his throat again, and locks eyes with Jester.

_“So you were born backwards.  
Your heart covers 80% of your skin.  
It is huge—and it is fragile.”_

Jester sucks in a breath, and forgets how to do it again. Caleb’s eyes don’t waver from hers as he continues mercilessly:

_  
You don’t know how to chain-link fence your feelings.  
You will find your trust abandoned and bruised on the side of the road—  
Do not leave it there—  
Dust it off and put it right back under your shirt._

_If you don’t learn to stop apologizing for yourself,  
you will mirage out of existence.  
See, someday, that 80% is gonna get you hurt.  
You will tell a woman over and over that you love her,  
and she will say nothing.  
You will sob in public,  
and people will just stare._

_They will want to carve their names into you  
and watch as the pieces fall off—  
 **let them try.**  
Your heart is a geyser and for that you will always feel strange.  
Most people shut down when they get over saturated with feeling;  
most people harden into hate  
–into indifference–  
because the biggest risk we ever take is to love without fear._

_You are not afraid.  
You are a cathedral waiting to be filled with hymns;  
you are an infinite playground;  
you are sky-bound and sprinting,  
so cover your heart in goose-bump armor.  
It will only beat stronger,  
beat louder._

_Keep hoping.  
Stand up on subways and shout compliments to strangers,  
dance, poorly, in public if it makes you feel better.  
Love until it hurts.  
Then love more—you know how._

_There will be days when you’ll wish you were numb;  
when you’ll want to rip your heart off your body  
and find something easier to take its place.  
Collect those days like bricks  
and marvel at the buildings you will make.  
Stand on top, chest open, head up—  
Nobody will ever see the world like you do._

_Never try to be better than the best version of you.  
You are not perfect.  
You are perfectly human._

Is this what Yasha felt when Beau read her that poem. Is this what it feels like to be flayed open. Jester _knows_ Caleb can see the tears in her eyes, she _knows_ he knows what that poem did to her: over and over she hears his voice, _You don’t know how to chain-link fence your feelings…you will find your trust abandoned and bruised on the side of the road. **Do not leave it there.**_

She feels a tear slide down her cheek. Caleb holds her gaze. In her ears: _Love till it hurts. Then love more—you know how._

_No one will ever see the world like you do._

She wishes, suddenly, that this poem she got for him, the poem that came to her in the dark, does to him what this is doing to her.

He sees her. He _sees her._ She feels cut open, like he incised her chest and gazed at her heart, she feels her ribcage opening like a flower under his gaze, _why does he see her, how does he see her, consummate liar and jokester Jester Lavorre—_

“Ms. Lavorre,” Dr. Kryn is calling, “your turn.”

“O-oh,” she stammers, “one moment.” She dashes the tears from her eyes as surreptitiously as she can, and goes up to the front.

She says: “Hi, this is um, technically this is a song? But the writer is a poet, and _also_ the first poems were songs, we learned that before, so um.” Dr. Kryn’s eyebrows are up. “Also it’s kind of long, so please bear with me! This is [_Anthem_ by Leonard Cohen](https://apoemaday.tumblr.com/post/151940095163/anthem).”

_The birds, they sang  
at the break of day,  
 **Start again**  
I heard them say.  
Don’t dwell on what  
has passed away  
or what is yet to be.  
Ah, the wars, they will  
be fought again,  
The holy dove–  
She will be caught again,  
bought and sold  
and bought again;  
the dove is never free.  
  
Ring the bells that still can ring  
Forget your perfect offering._

Jester pauses, and emphasizes the next two lines:

_  
**There is a crack in everything  
That’s how the light gets in  
**  
We asked for signs,  
the signs were sent:  
the birth betrayed,  
the marriage spent,  
Yeah, the widowhood  
of every government–  
signs for all to see.  
  
I can’t run no more  
with that lawless crowd  
while the killers in high places  
say their prayers out loud.  
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up  
a thundercloud,  
and they’re going to hear from me.  
  
Ring the bells that still can ring  
  
You can add up the parts,  
but you won’t have the sum  
You can strike up the march,  
there is no drum.  
 **Every heart, every heart  
to love will come  
but like a refugee.  
  
**_

Jester is looking at Caleb Widogast, and she can see the way he’s clenching his fists, and she can see the way he’s gazing at her, and she can see the way his tears are shining in his blue-blue eyes. _Good_ , she thinks, _that’s the point of poetry._ It’s supposed to make them feel.

And she understands now, why Dr. Kryn made them do this. Because finding poems for their partners allowed them to understand each other better. Because poems can say things you didn’t know you wanted to say.

Because Leonard Cohen put in words what Jester is feeling for Caleb Widogast. And Miles Walser put to words what Jester has been struggling with, what Caleb Widogast saw immediately.

Poetry did this. Words did this. Dr. Kryn’s assignment did this.

She has to blink away a few tears of her own. But there are still four lines to go.

She puts her hand to her heart, crushing the paper she was reading from. It doesn’t matter. She knows the next few lines.

_  
Ring the bells that still can ring  
Forget your perfect offering  
There is a crack, a crack in everything  
That’s how the light gets in._

Jester looks at Caleb, and Caleb looks at Jester, and Jester thinks, _I see the light in you. I see you shining._

She steps back to her desk, and when she sits down, she touches his hand.

She feels him freeze.

“You think you’re broken, Caleb,” she whispers softly, “but guess what.”

“What,” he breathes.

“Weren’t you listening?” She twines her fingers into his. Burn scar fingers and paint-stained hand. “That’s how the light gets in.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a chapter to exorcise my heart. this is a love letter to my friends. this is a thank you note for letting me down gently. thank you. thank you.

Deep breaths, Jester Lavorre. Time to confess to Fjord that you love him.

It’s now or never.

Well, not _never_ , she could always do this another day, but if she chickens out then she’ll _know_ , and then she’ll be able to tell herself _let’s do it another day,_ and then it will just be like, a whole entire cycle of herself chickening out.

And she can’t chicken out now. It’s just…too important to do this.

It just needs to be done. It needs to be over. If things change…then things change. But things will _never_ change if she doesn’t do this, and so.

And so.

Veth, Beau, and Yasha had all slept over the night before, where she broke the news to them that she was planning on confessing. They were all supportive of her decision, although Veth had wrinkled her nose. “What would you see in that bastard man boy child anyway,” she had said, half-teasing. “He doesn’t deserve you, Jessie.”

“He’s nice!” Beau had defended. “Swim team’s pretty cool under him.”

“Yeah, but _swim team captain_ doesn’t mean worthy of Jessie’s heart, I mean look at how he’s made her cry lately!”

“It’s not like my feelings are his fault,” Jester had pointed out, tongue poked out as she carefully painted Yasha’s toenails. “They’re just. You know. A thing. That sprouted.”

Beau had pointed an accusing finger at Jester. “Don’t you _start_ with the plant metaphors. I’m partnered with Caduceus Clay in chemistry, and god, he is SO weird.”

“Hey,” Yasha had reprimanded, softly. “He’s nice.”

“Yes, nice, but weird,” Beau muttered rebelliously.

Yasha had leaned forward and taken Jester’s hand.

“Jes,” she said softly, “here’s what, um, my therapist has told me to do, when things get scary. First of all…what’s the worst that can happen?”

Jester bit her lip, capping the nail polish. “Um, he laughs in my face, and Avantika is there, and _Avantika_ laughs in my face, and then the entire school finds out about my dumb feelings and they bully me about it so badly I have to switch schools?”

“That’s…pretty bad, yeah,” Yasha acknowledged. “That’s…really bad. But you know I would punch anyone who tried to bully you.”

“Yeah!” Beau said. Veth had said, “I’m not part of the archery team for nothing, you know.”

“And what’s the best that could happen?” Yasha had continued.

“Um, he starts crying, and he says he’s loved me forever, and breaks up with Avantika, who is conveniently standing nearby, and then Fjord kisses me, like that Taylor Swift music video?”

“That’s pretty nice,” Yasha said. Veth had scrunched up her face. “And what’s the _most likely_ to happen?”

Jester had looked down, and twisted her hands, and sighed, and then finally said, “He says thank you, that’s very nice of you Jester, you are a very good friend, but I don’t see you that way, and I wish you all the best?”

Yasha nodded. “And is that so bad?”

Mutely, Jester shook her head.

“So you see,” Yasha said gently, “it will be all right. And if he says no, then I will buy you doughnuts.”

“And if he says yes, I will buy you ice cream,” Veth contributed.

“And if he bullies you,” Beau promised, “I’ll destroy his car.”

**

And so, buoyed by her friends’ support, Jester approaches Fjord the next day after school.

“Hey,” she says softly. “Have time to talk?”

Fjord looks up from his locker, surprised. “Jes?” And oh, how beautiful his accent is, how it _drawls_ across her name, even now that she knows the accent is fake and it’s totally Vandren’s. “Um, sure, there’s some time before practice.”

“Oh, um, I don’t really want to like…mess you up before practice,” she says, suddenly panicking. What if he gets super bowled over by the news and then he inhales wrong and there’s CHLORINE IN HIS LUNGS and he DROWNS? But that’s a silly thought. Fjord would never drown.

She breathes in deep. “Um…if it’s okay, that works for me?”

Fjord is looking…adorably confused, his beautiful gorgeous annoyingly hot face all scrunched up. Jester feels her heart clench. _The heart is a size of a fist,_ she remembers suddenly. She feels like her heart is currently being squeezed, compressed real hard, in the confines of her ribcage. “Um, okay. Is here okay?”

“I’d like—well, somewhere a bit more private.”

“Um, sure. By the pool should work?”

He leads her to the pool where the swim team practices. It’s early, so there’s no one there yet. Jester’s hands have lost all feeling, and her feet in her Keds are cold. Apparently cold feet is a real thing.

They sit down by the pool, Jester sitting well away from the water, while Fjord sits and dangles his feet in.

“Um.” Her face is burning. “First of all, um, I guess I should tell you that I, I consider you a really good friend.” Fjord opens his mouth, and she raises a hand. “No, wait, I just. Let me get through this okay or I’ll lose my nerve and that would suck.” He closes his mouth, his dear precious mouth, god she could watch it move for hours. “I consider you a really good friend and I’m just, so proud, of how you’re holding up under, under the stresses of your life, and how constant you are and how loyal to Vandren, and I just. I love how dedicated you are to the things that matter, you know? You like to think of yourself as _lost_ and _sad_ and you lie all the time, but somehow you tell the truth to me and that’s…that’s a big honor.

“Which is why I don’t…I don’t want to keep lying to you. I love you. I’m in love with you. Romantically. In a non-platonic relationship way.”

There. Could she have made it any clearer than that?

She sucks in a deep breath. Fjord’s face is frozen in—she can’t read it. Shock, mostly. No disgust that she can see. But no joy, either. No overwhelming delight. That…doesn’t bode well. She exhales, and breathes in. She has to keep reminding her lungs to work.

Her heart is seizing, and her stomach is rebelling, and she clenches her fists real tight. The points of her newly-painted nails dig into her palms, and she holds on to that feeling. They ground her to the here and now—the chlorine scent of the pool, her own noisy breathing, Fjord’s perfect frozen face.

“And I don’t—I don’t expect a, a favorable answer,” she says, tripping over the words like pebbles going _plink plink plink_ into the water. “I don’t, I don’t want to pressure you or anything, I want…I want so badly to stay friends with you still. If Avantika will let us. I mean, she shouldn’t, she shouldn’t have that much control over you, you’re your own person, you know, and she isn’t very nice—I mean, I’m not trying to put her down because she’s my rival or anything, she’s just. Not very nice to you, Fjord, and you deserve better. You’re so great, and you’re my friend, and I’m in love with you, and I just want the best for you. Fjord, please _say something._ ”

“Jester…”

She closes her eyes. There’s _so much pity_ in that voice.

She already knows what he’s going to say.

“Thank you, Jester,” Fjord says, softly. “I consider you…such a dear friend, too.” God, still with the Vandren accent. Still with that drawling beautiful sound, that drawling beautiful _fake wrong_ sound. “I know…I know I haven’t been the best friend to you, I know that…I don’t measure up, and I’m so honored that you….” It sounds like he’s pulling words frantically from every romance book he’s ever read. “I’m so honored that I’m the one you chose to give your heart to, but…”

Jester opens her eyes. She didn’t even realize she’d squeezed them shut so tightly the world spins around her for a second. “Fjord,” she chokes out, “whatever you’re going to say, say it in your real accent so I know it’s real. So I know it’s _you_ saying it.”

Fjord sucks in a shallow, pained breath.

“ _Jester_ ,” he says, and it’s sad, so sad, but it’s his real accent now. That vaguely British sound she has no idea where he picked up. “Jester, I’m so honored that you love me,” he almost chokes on the words, “but I don’t see you that way.”

 _I don’t see you that way._ It’s impossible, of course, for that sound to echo around the pool area, but Jester imagines it with her artist’s eye: two small figures, a giant pool, and Doppler Effect-esque lines stretching out, _I don’t see you that way, I don’t see you that way._ I don’t love you, Jester Lavorre.

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably. He reaches out, then aborts the movement. Dimly Jester realizes tears are beginning to slide down her cheeks. “Jester, I’m _so sorry._ ”

“No, no,” Jester says, laughing best she can with the tears coursing down her cheeks, “don’t be, don’t be, my feelings aren’t your responsibility, you don’t—I grew these feelings myself, you know, they’re my fault.”

“Jes,” he says, half-reprimanding half-guilty, all sorrowful. “I don’t want this to hurt you.”

“I mean, it does,” she says. Brutal honesty dropping from her mouth, and what does it matter anymore, what does ANYTHING matter now? “But I’ll, I’ll get over it. I just need some time.”

“Do you need…space?” Fjord says softly.

“I do,” Jester says, and the last part comes out in a sob. “I do, but Fjord, will we be friends after?”

“If you still want me after,” Fjord says, and he dashes tears from his eyes too.

“I will,” Jester promises, “I will. I’ll get over this, and we’ll be friends again, okay? And Fjord, Fjord please, rethink your relationship with Avantika, even if you don’t love me you don’t love _her_ either, and she doesn’t love _you_ , and you deserve to be in a true loving relationship—”

“Just like you, Jes. You deserve _all_ the happiness in the world.”

“I would have found it with you,” Jester whispers, and Fjord reels back like he’s been struck. “But it’s okay, it’s okay, I’ll get over this, I promise it’s okay. I gotta go. I’m okay!”

And she flees.

**

Veth, Beau, and Yasha are waiting by her car. When they see her tearstained face, Yasha instantly envelops her in those giant arms, Beau joining a moment later. Veth darts in, swipes her car keys, and hustles them all in the car.

Wrapped up tightly in her best friends’ arms, her car doors closed behind them, Jester begins to sob.

Deep, wracking sobs, screaming and weeping, her entire body bowing inward as she tries vainly to protect her ribcage, but what is the POINT when the pain comes from INSIDE, is she having a heart attack, is this what a heart attack feels like, she feels so bad, she wants to tear open her chest and yank out her heart and YEET IT SOMEWHERE IT CAN’T HURT HER ANYMORE—

“Doughnuts?” Yasha whispers, as Jester soaks her shoulder.

“Alcohol,” Beau counters.

“Pizza,” Veth says, starting the car. “Carbs. Grease. Cheese.”

“Jester likes doughnuts,” Yasha protests. “And we promised her doughnuts if it didn’t go well.”

“But alcohol will blunt it all,” Beau protests.

“Sure, until she ends up drunk dialing Fjord or Avantika,” Veth says, roaring out of the school parking yard. “And Jes doesn’t _like_ alcohol anyway, come on Beau. Respect her boundaries.”

“HEY—”

“Settle down,” Yasha chides them, and hugs Jester tighter. “What do you want, Jessie? We’re here for you.”

“Just—just keep hugging me,” she requests, through hiccups.

“I can do that,” Yasha whispers.

And she does that, and keeps doing that, as Veth drives to Pizza Hut and gets four boxes of pizza, as Yasha tells Veth to drive by Krispy Kreme and get two dozen doughnuts, as Beau sprints out the car and grabs three tubs of ice cream. Jester sniffles and a small, small smile curls on her lips as her best friends ply her with food, trying to blunt the heartache.

It’s there. It hurts. There’s shattered glass in her chest and it’s shaped like Fjord’s name, and every time she breathes it’s like she’s being stabbed all over again, _I don’t love you. I’m sorry._ Fjord, beautiful Fjord, beloved Fjord, all the shit she’d done for him so that he would look at her. And he’d looked at her, and didn’t…didn’t love what he saw, not in the way _she_ looked at him.

And she would just…have to live with that. She would just…have to live with that.

Tears slide onto her meat lover’s pizza.

“Shit,” Beau curses, upon seeing that, and she lets her lips quirk up even as she cries.

**

Later that night, sometime past midnight, as her friends doze in a food coma, Jester rises from the snooze pile and heads out the back door.

Her phone is lit up in her hand, and the green indicator that Fjord is awake blinks at her.

She squeezes her eyes. Two tears push out. She opens them. The green indicator that Caleb Widogast is awake blinks at her.

She’s calling him before she realizes what she’s doing.

“Lavorre?” he asks, surprised. He’d picked up on the third ring, and he doesn’t sound sleepy, just startled. “What is the matter? Is it—”

And of course he knows, his best and friend and his sister are at her house. They probably said something. Jester thinks she’d feel humiliated, but instead she’s just so, so achingly grateful that she doesn’t have to explain.

“Caleb,” she chokes out, “Caleb, um. I was born backwards and my heart covers eighty percent of my skin, _how do I dust it off and put it under my shirt, Caleb._ How do I…I want to chain-link fence my feelings, Caleb, but I don’t know how, and…how I do not…want to rip my heart off my body and, and find something easier to take its place?”

“Oh, _Jester_ ,” he breathes out. There’s the sound of a scraping chair. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t—don’t,” she says, “please, just, please just tell me, how do I…how do I do that.”

“One second,” he says, soft into the phone like a secret. The flipping of pages. His voice, awkward and earnest: “Jester, the poem never said to not…to not feel what you are feeling right now. You know that, yes? You can, you can feel what it is that you are feeling right now. That is good. That is healthy, even.”

Jester is crying again, crying at her back porch and her bare feet are on the wood and she’s getting a little cold, even with her robe pulled tight around her.

“Fix it,” she pleads, “fix me. No, wait, no, you don’t have to, but please, a poem, anything. Help me, please, _help me_.”

A breath into the speaker. A clearing of the throat.

[“Tonight I can write the saddest lines,”](https://allpoetry.com/Tonight-I-Can-Write-\(The-Saddest-Lines\)) Caleb begins.   
_Write, for example, 'The night is starry and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'  
  
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.  
  
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.  
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.  
  
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.  
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.  
  
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.  
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.  
  
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.  
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.  
  
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.  
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.  
  
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.  
The night is starry and she is not with me.  
  
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.  
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.  
  
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.  
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.  
  
The same night whitening the same trees.  
We, of that time, are no longer the same.  
  
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.  
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.  
  
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.  
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.  
  
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.  
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.  
  
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms  
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.  
  
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer  
and these the last verses that I write for her._”

The door opens behind Jester, and Veth’s voice croaks out, “Jes?” Jester turns, wiping the tears from her face. Veth spots the phone in her friend’s hand, asks, “Is that Fjord?”

Jester shakes her head. “It’s Caleb.”

She sees Veth mouth “ _Caleb_?” in surprise, but then her friend nods and gestures that she’ll be going back in. Jester turns back to the backyard, listens to Caleb’s breathing.

“I’ve always liked that one,” Caleb tells her, voice low. Around Jester the night settles like a heavy cloak. “It’s by Pablo Neruda. It’s most famous line is of course… _love is so short, forgetting is so long._ That one line resonates, you know? People love it just for that one line.”

“Taylor Swift likes that poem,” Jester contributes, voice rasping.

“Good taste.”

“Yeah.”

“But I’ve always liked…” Caleb exhales. “ _I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too._ You know? The almost-love of it all. It could have been so much, but it wasn’t.”

“Yeah,” Jester breathes, “yeah.” She sits down on the porch, arranges her robe to cover her cold feet, leans against the wall. “I mean. I guess you’ve figured it out by now, but I told Fjord I loved him.”

Caleb hums.

“It didn’t go well,” she clarifies unnecessarily.

“Mm. Was he…cruel?”

“No. No. He was…really nice about it. He said he was honored.” She scoffs weakly. “If he was more honored he’d have…ditched Avantika, chosen me. You know.”

Caleb hums. “You would not have been happy if…he chose you simply because you were there.”

“No,” Jester acknowledges, “but it would have been…nice. It would have been so nice to have been loved by Fjord.”

“I can see that.”

“Tell me another, Caleb,” Jester whispers, “tell me another. It doesn’t have to be…it doesn’t have to relate. I just. Want to hear someone else’s voice right now. The night is so big and I’m outside my house and there aren’t any stars and I am so, _so_ alone.”

 _Beau and Veth and Yasha,_ Caleb could have said. _I am busy studying,_ Caleb could have said. It’s highly likely Jester disturbed him from some chemical equations or physics scribbling or something that would change the face of the world, she knows Caleb is on the way to doing great things while she joins the legions of café owners and gets rich and does nothing worthwhile.

But Caleb Widogast only flips some pages, and his low soft voice says, “This is [_Big Heart Poem_ by Anne Sexton](https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-big-heart-2/)—” he pauses, waits for Jester to snicker at the word sex, but she doesn’t, she doesn’t even inhale.

_Big heart,  
wide as a watermelon,  
but wise as birth,  
there is so much abundance  
in the people I have:  
Max, Lois, Joe, Louise,  
Joan, Marie, Dawn,  
Arlene, Father Dunne,  
and all in their short lives  
give to me repeatedly,  
in the way the sea  
places its many fingers on the shore,  
again and again  
and they know me,  
they help me unravel,  
they listen with ears made of conch shells,  
they speak back with the wine of the best region.  
They are my staff.  
They comfort me.  
  
They hear how  
the artery of my soul has been severed  
and soul is spurting out upon them,  
bleeding on them,  
messing up their clothes,  
dirtying their shoes.  
And God is filling me,  
though there are times of doubt  
as hollow as the Grand Canyon,  
still God is filling me.  
He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,  
the spider in its intricate web,  
the sun  
in all its amazement,  
and a slain ram  
that is the glory,  
the mystery of great cost,  
and my heart,  
which is very big,  
I promise it is very large,  
a monster of sorts,  
takes it all in—  
all in comes the fury of love._

“There is so much abundance in the people I have,” Jester repeats. “Veth. Yasha. Beau.”

“Me,” Caleb says. “Me.”

“You.” A breath. “The artery of my soul has been severed, and…and I’m bleeding out on you, on them. Messing up your clothes. Dirtying your shoes.”

“And yet,” Caleb says, implacable like a promise, “still there is us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pasensya ka na sa mga kathang-isip kong ito,  
> wari dala lang ng pagmamahal sa iyo  
> Ako'y gigising na  
> mula sa panaginip kong ito  
> At sa wakas ay kusang lalayo sa iyo  
> (lalayo sa iyo)


End file.
